Roya is a dreamy, idealistic seventeen-year-old living in 1953 Tehran. There is plenty of political upheaval as the Shah and the National Front fight for supremacy. Roya is not interested in politics and finds a literary oasis in the neighborhood stationery shop owned by Mr. Fakhri. There she finds pens, paper and Persian poetry books and she visits the shop every Tuesday afternoon when school is over. One day a cute boy comes in and is given a stack of papers to deliver by Mr. Fakhri. Bahman Aslan catches Roya's heart even before they are introduced. Their romance blossoms under the watchful eye of Mr. Fakhri. A few months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square where violence erupts as a result of a coup d'erat that gives the Shah all of the power. In the packed crowd Roya does not see Bahman. She tries for several weeks to contact him but is not successful. In her grief Roya moves to California with her sister to attend college. There she meets Walter Archer. Roya and Walter marry and move to Boston so that Walter can attend law school. They live there and build a family. Sixty years after moving to America, Roya finds Bahman in a nursing home nearby her home where both of them meet and learn what ultimately happened earlier in their lives.
I love Middle Eastern novels. Most of their traditions, and especially food, charm me. I loved reading how Mrs. Khanom prepared the Iranian traditional foods. It makes me want to visit an Iranian restaurant near my home and I probably will go there on the weekend. The closeness of the families in the novel is also heartwarming. It's too bad that this part of their culture did not transplant well in the U. S.
I felt sorry for Walter. His wife could not show herself fully to him no matter how long they were married. He accepted her as she is. I also felt sorry for Roya because she could not get over her first love. We all have a first love that lives in our memory but most of us can move on. I didn't understand why Roya couldn't. There must be something about her personality that prevents her from feeling fully. Zari is a secondary character and we see her as the complete opposite of her sister. Zari has the ability to quickly recover from any downturns in her life. She sees people clearly but she is not bothered by them.
The three settings, Tehran, California and Boston, did not seem all that important to the story. The only thing about the Tehran setting that moved me was the descriptions of the food and how they were made. I think, though, that family could be a setting here. It's the family binds that make this story touching.
I loved this novel and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars. It is recommended highly, primarily to women.
No comments:
Post a Comment